Coltrane

by | Sep 26, 2025 | Quartet/Quintet

The 1960 video (above) is from John Coltrane’s first time in Europe, touring as a member of one of Miles Davis’ first great quintets. On Green Dolphin Street was recorded in Dusseldorf Germany, and features Coltrane on tenor, Wynton Kelly playing piano, Paul Chambers on bass, and Jimmy Cobb at the drums. Miles sat out this particular evening, thus leaving the spotlight all to Trane.

(Upper right) Stan Getz joins the quartet in a medley of standards with John soloing on What’s New? and Stan doing the chores with Moonlight in Vermont. Alabama (Lower right) is a powerful tune penned by Coltrane in response to the 1963 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama, which killed four young Black girls.

Monk … Notes Not There

by | Sep 20, 2025 | Quartet/Quintet, Solo/Duo

One of Miles Davis’ notable quotes is, “Don’t play what’s there, play what’s not there.” Thelonious Sphere Monk has seemingly mastered the art of doing exactly that … playing the notes that are not there! His compositions and improvisations feature dissonances and angular melodic twists, often using flat ninths, flat fifths, unexpected chromatic notes together, low bass notes and stride, and fast whole tone runs, combining a highly percussive attack with abrupt, dramatic use of switched key releases, silences, and hesitations. Whatever else that means, it all boils down to Thelonious Monk is an acquired taste.

Take a sip from this 1963 Brussels performance of his composition Rhythm-A-Ning (above), as he is joined by Charlie Rouse on sax, John Ore playing bass, and Frankie Dunlop on drums. (Below left) is Lulu’s Back in Town, a popular song and jazz standard written in 1935 by Warren and Dubin … performed in 1966 in Poland by Monk at the piano, Charlie Rouse on tenor, Lawrence Gales playing bass, and Ben Riley on drums. At the Berliner Jazztage in 1969, Monk shared his recipe for greatness with a classic solo rendition of Ellington’s Sophisticated Lady (below right).

Power of the Pen –– Sound of the Horn

by | Sep 13, 2025 | Orchestral, Quartet/Quintet, Video

Terence Blanchard is jazz royalty—trumpet player, bandleader, film score composer, and recording artist, all rolled into one. Terence is an alumnus of the Berklee College of Music, the premier institute of the performing arts, along with such notables as Quincy Jones, Diana Krall, as well as any number of other Grammy-winning engineers, producers, and instrumentalists across various musical genres. His close ties to Berklee revolve around teaching and mentoring rather than merely as an alumnus … that and similar educational involvements, in addition to his film scoring, may be the reason Blanchard hasn’t exactly become a household name.

In the early ‘90s Terence gained attention as a soloist, performing on Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing and Mo’ Better Blues. He went on to score all of Lee’s subsequent films, including the Hurricane Katrina documentary, When the Levees Broke. Levees was originally part of the musical score, evocatively performed by Terence in the following video along with a forty piece orchestra!

The song I Cover the Waterfront was written by Johnny Green and Edward Heyman in 1933; it was inspired by Max Miller’s 1932 novel of the same name and a subsequent 1933 film. The Terence Blanchard rendition from his 1994 album, The Billie Holiday Songbook, features Terence on trumpet, Bruce Barth at the piano, Troy Davis playing drums, and Chris Thomas on bass.

I Cover the Waterfront

by Terence Blanchard | Billie Holiday Songbook

Sing Soweto is a New Orleans jazz and bop track released in 1991 on the album titled Terence Blanchard. The Soweto Uprising (or Rebellion) was a 1976 protest in South Africa, where thousands of Black students were killed in a march against the requirement they be instructed only in the Afrikaans language, which they strongly associated with the apartheid government. Blanchard’s trumpet and subtle chorus on the video (below) capture the pain of the struggle.

Settings – Ellis Marsalis

by | Sep 6, 2025 | Quartet/Quintet, Trio

Ellis Marsalis is a father figure of jazz in a number of ways. As a pianist, he was among the first generation of musicians to bring bebop to New Orleans; as an educator, many great musicians came through Marsalis’ tutelage, including Terence Blanchard, Harry Connick Jr., Donald Harrison, and Nicholas Payton. Ellis is, of course, the headwaters –– the actual father –– of four exceptional jazz musicians: Wynton, Branford, Delfeayo, and Jason Marsalis. Here he demonstrates his prowess in three settings, including a quintet, quartet, and trio … equally as masterful in all of them.

Delilah (top) was part of a concert streamed live by WWOZ from the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Center in 2018. It features the quintet with Ellis on piano,Gerald Watkins at the drums, Jason Stewart playing bass, Andrew Baham on trumpet, and Derek Douget on sax. In the (middle) is Homecoming, an Ellis original performed with his quartet at his 80th birthday celebration event at Dizzy Gillespie’s Club CocaCola, in New York. Finally (bottom) in 1997 Syndrome, another Ellis Marsalis original, is given the trio treatment in Bern Switzerland.